Performing Foreign Policy on Social Networks

• In Event: Performing Domestic and Foreign Politics in Social Networks: Virtual and Actual

Abstract

Patriotic (non)-consumption exploded in Russia during and in the aftermath of the Ukraine crisis. It could be considered an indicator that a ‘feeling of belonging to a great nation’ – the loss of which was mourned most following the breakup of the Soviet Union – has been restored. At the same time, it also shows that the need to perform foreign policy on a grass roots level in the quest for positive self-identity and subjectivity has increased. By prophesizing their agreement with state’s foreign policy, Russian social network users not only cater to their psychological need for a positive in-group identity, they are also allocating themselves agency in the Russian political system. This paper shows that foreign policy performance focused exclusively on foreign policy decisions of a single man, who is also the focus of the branding effort. Moreover, it is not just the persona of President Putin that has become the symbol of the rebirth of a great power identity, it is also a whole patriarchal narrative of masculinity that goes with it. It encompasses phallic symbolism, militarization and women-shaming as its constitutive features.

Author

• Elizaveta Gaufman, U of Bremen (Germany)